Another Chance by Shawn Lane

[reviews_and_ramblings]

This is a rather short, less than 60 pages, but interesting story. It's an historical romance with a Regency setting (1818). Daniel and Aubrey were college mate and friends years before; one night they gave up to the passion inside a carriage. Nothing more than a fast encounter, something Aubrey would be glad to prolong, but family issue took Daniel away for ten years. Now Daniel is a wealthy widower with two sons, and Aubrey a rake with a married lover and two illegitimate sons. When Daniel returns to London after the death of his wife, he has no intention to marry again, but he knows that he needs to frequent the ton for social interest. The first night he meets again Aubrey, the passion flares but the morning after Daniel recovers his intellectual faculties and fears the social consequences of his actions: he rejects Aubrey in the worst way.

As I said the story is not very long (a thing I regretted also in the other book I read by Shawn Lane), but it's well plotted. The supporting characters, Aubrey's lover Maribel, for example, are hinted but with an own personality, and also the setting is decipted in few words, but in a good way. Actually maybe the fact that the story is so short is one of its merit: it has a feeling of a complete short story, not haphazardly put together for the purpose to write an M/M romance in frilly dress. For example Daniel and Aubrey make sex in every room available, but always remember to lock the door... they never forget that they are not only an illicit couple, but also an illegal ones.

Daniel and Aubrey represent two classical characters of the Regency romance: Daniel is the prim an proper gentleman, the man who always makes the right thing, the good father and the faithful husband. Aubrey instead is the rake, the destitute nobleman who roams in the wealthy circle only thanks to the family name. Aubrey also respects the classical behavior of the rake, a man who when falls in love he falls hard.

I would like to read more on these two, how they manage to make things work, since it appears that no one of the supposedly secrets in this story is unknown to the chat of the Ton.

http://www.ellorascave.com/productpage.asp?ISBN=9781419917837

Amazon Kindle: Another Chance
Publisher: Ellora's Cave (December 7, 2009)

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